Zalmay Khalilzad

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With one day left to finish Iraq's new constitution, Sunni Arabs asked Sunday that the divisive issue of federalism be put off until next year so the draft can be completed on time, warning they would not accept provisions for federated states. The formerly dominant Sunni Arabs fear the issue of federalism could lead to Kurdish and Shiite Muslim regions splitting away from Iraq. But officials said there also was no agreement on 17 other issues, including the distribution of oil wealth.

By Ellen Knickmeyer and K.I. Ibrahim, The Washington Post | November 18, 2005

The United States on Thursday expanded its probe of alleged abuses to include all Iraqi-run detention sites, saying the Shiite-led government agreed to the move after U.S. forces uncovered a secret Interior Ministry prison in Baghdad where Sunni Arabs allegedly were tortured and starved. Law-enforcement officials from the FBI, Justice Department, U.S. Embassy and U.S.-led military forces will be detailed to aid an Iraqi-appointed citizen group in the investigation, which is to cover at least 1,100 sites across the country where Iraqi security forces and justice officials are holding prisoners.

CRASH DETAILS: Four of the five American civilians who died in a helicopter crash Tuesday were shot execution-style in the back of the head, a U.S. defense official said. It was unclear whether the men were shot before or after they died. Three Sunni insurgent groups have separately claimed responsibility for the crash. SPILLOVER TO IRAN: The chaos of Iraq is spilling over into Iran, spreading a destabilizing influence to its minority Arab population, said Mohammad Reza Baghban, the Iranian consul in the southern city of Basra.

A powerful car bomb exploded outside the office of a U.S. security contractor in the Afghan capital Sunday, killing at least seven people, including two Americans, and wounding several others, officials and witnesses said. Hours earlier, a blast wrecked a religious school in southeastern Afghanistan, reportedly killing at least eight children and one adult and underlining the country's fragile security as it moves toward its first post-Taliban election in October. Security officials have issued several warnings in recent weeks about possible car bombings and suicide attacks in the Afghan capital.

The Bush administration, struggling to find a way to keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power amid a deepening political crisis, is quietly prodding the Pakistani president to share authority with a longtime rival as a way of broadening his base, according to American and Pakistani officials. Musharraf, a key American ally since the Sept. 11 attacks, has lost so much domestic support in recent months that U.S. officials have gotten behind the idea that an alliance with Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, would be his best chance of remaining president.

The Bush administration has told Turkish leaders that it no longer will lobby to use their country as a base to assault Iraq, ending months of intense effort to deploy tens of thousands of troops to a northern front in a possible war. At the same time, the administration warned Turkey not to go ahead with plans to send its own army into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, saying that such an incursion could lead to "a war within a war" and further...

A station wagon carrying three Pakistanis slowed for a moment to go over a speed bump. Within seconds, Afghan intelligence agents pounced--seizing rifles and rocket-propelled grenades the men allegedly planned to use to assassinate the U.S. ambassador. The suspects were nabbed Sunday after coming within just 150 feet of where U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was to speak at a road inauguration in the Qarghayi district of northeastern Laghman province. Two senior Afghan officials said intelligence forces had been tipped off about the plot beforehand and had agents lying in wait.

The Iraqi prime minister sharply criticized U.S. policy Friday during a private meeting with the U.S. ambassador, according to sources, pointing to America's failure to either reduce violence or give his government authority over security matters. The criticism in private was the latest example of tension between the two governments and stood in stark contrast with a joint public statement issued after the meeting. In the statement, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the U.S. Embassy said they had agreed to unspecified "timelines" to make tough political and security decisions on the country's future.

The bombing of the al-Askari shrine is likely to be the tipping point for Iraq. We will remember it as the moment when Iraq was doomed to be a failed state riven by sectarian violence, if not civil war. Or we will remember it as the moment when Iraq proved it could rise above the greatest outrage, could resist the natural impulse to meet violence with greater violence, could show its resilience against those who sought to destroy it by exploiting ethnic...

Hours after a new American envoy to Iraq took the oath of office and cited the "critical" challenge faced by the United States here, bombs ripped through a predominantly Shiite Muslim town north of Baghdad and a Shiite neighborhood in the capital Thursday, killing at least 122 people. The fresh round of bloodletting heightened sectarian tensions and underscored the difficult mission faced by Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who takes over at a time when the Bush administration is under concerted attack by congressional Democrats over its Iraq policies.